Improve Your Memory

5 brain boosters to aid your fading memory

We all forget to drop off the dry cleaning, where we left those blasted car keys, and if we already put on deodorant for the day. Brain atrophy already? I know the feeling well. My mind used to be sharper than the scent of patchouli at a Phish concertuntil my son was born. For the past year, I've been blaming my scattered self on "mommy brain" until I learned that women actually become sharper after they give birth. Recent research from the University of Richmond found that the brain cell structures vital for communication double during pregnancy and that postdelivery the pathways to the hippocampus (where learning and memory are focused) are redefined and more efficient. Crap. There goes that theory. That's why I enlisted the help of a few experts like all-time Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings (after all it's hard to forget a guy who won $3 million) to tell me their best memory-boosting tricks — and tried them out myself.

BRAIN BOOSTER Focus on What Fascinates

My father is a brain surgeon, so I've spent most of my life bombarded with talk of aneurysms, cerebrums, and hypothalamuses. Not that I can remember any of it. So when my dad asked me to attend a talk on his latest research, I challenged myself to retain some of it. The problem? I find science so damn dull.

"If you think something is boring, you just haven't been hearing the right facts about it," says Jennings, author of a book on the phenomenon due out in October 2006. "Try to explain ballet to people who hate it and they'll be bored stiff. But they might be a little more interested if you told them about the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, where the audience actually rioted because the music and choreography were so shockingly modern." Or just make the information at hand more relevant to your life or the lives of your listeners to maintain attention span.

Point taken. As my dad is lecturing about the neurological effects of caffeine, I avoid zoning out by considering how my best writing often comes while I'm sipping coffee. My two-cup-a-day habit contributes to my work productivity — hey, medical research says so. A few days later, I've forgotten everything he said about the pituitary gland, as well as adenosine production. But I can recall just about all the stuff he presented regarding caffeine, most notably how the brain and blood vessels react in the immediate aftermath of a French roast burst.